Luxury watch market amidst the Pandemic in Hong Kong

 As previously reported by friends, dealers, collectors, most people look to the secondhand market to buy their timepieces, and vintage watches pretty much dominate the sector. I should say more people go to the neo-vintage as they are tend to be more affordable.

Before the Pandemic in Q1 2020, we speculated that watch price would drop, however due to the strong Quantitative Easing by the US federal reserve, money is getting less valuable than it was before. People has money would either go for buying real estate and or certain expensive luxury watches.

That statement confirmed true after one year of the pandemic, where high-net-worth-individuals have continued to splurge on luxury items.

For example, the Sotheby's Important Watches live auction concluded on December 15 2020 and brought in $10.4 million — up 27% from 2019 — with a Patek Philippe double name Tiffany Ref 2499  selling for $818,600. Other standouts from the auction: A Cartier Ecran Mystery Clock that went for $564,500, and a Salmon Dial Audemars Piguet Royal Oak selling for $441,000.

In addition to the hype around owning a Rolex or Richard Mille, most understand that many luxury watches hold good investment value, like a Birkin or a Basquiat. These are all high-end, quality goods that have historically proved to retain the value paid for them or even become more valuable over time, often significantly.

Though Bain reported in November that the luxury goods market has fallen 23% to $265 billion this year, very expensive items such as Hermes bags relatively untouched by financial discord and market downturns. As during last weekend, the only shop that has a 20 persons queue at the entrance is Hermes at Canton Road of Tsim Sha Tsui.

Richard Mille is the Hermes of watches now. "Richard Mille is the most expensive. It's not just the craftsmanship, technology and research on material; it is the supply and demand. They only make maybe four or five thousand watches a year. You can't really get them.

Deloitte's 2019 "Global Powers of Luxury Goods" found that the average annual sales from the top 32 watch and jewelry companies topped $2 billion in 2017, and a 2018 Bain report stated that the secondhand market was worth nearly $25 billion, with watches and jewelry making up over 80% of all secondhand market purchases.

The next best investment after Richard Mille is a Patek, Audmears Piguet and Rolex. Not just because they are beautiful, but because they also retain their value. From there, Audemars Piguet — Bieber bought one in 2019 for $50,000 as a "lil wedding gift" to himself. Patek Philippe is also a solid choice — Jay-Z owns one worth at least $2.2 million. Note to take note that within these two years, we see that the demand on Blue dial Overseas Vacheron Constantin is getting higher, so as their classic pieces such as Perpetual Calendar especial housed in case of Overseas, 1921… etc.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and destabilized global financial markets, the luxury sector was still recovering from the impact of the Hong Kong protests, which saw Swiss watch imports to the region decline by 26.8% in comparison to 2018. Facing the coronavirus pandemic, the luxury watch industry was preparing for its worst year yet. However, since 1Q 2020 up to now. The Watch price has been increasing a.

Most obviously is Daytona, All Daytona price has been up more than 15-20% Q2 2021 comparing with that of Q2 2020.

The moral of the story is:-

Real estate dollar per square foot is breaking record at midst of COVID-19.

Wealthy people are still buying luxury watches and Hermes amid the pandemic.

Poor people is still suffering from either loss of job or losing pay hours!

No confirmed date of border lock down lifted even for Macao or China, not need to mention other countries such as Thailand, Singapore, or EU.

I wish that more HK people would go for COVID Vaccination free of charge, we are living in a paradise that we have millions of vaccine surplus back up by our motherland but people is hesitate to go for jab. Those poor countries have thousands of death tolls every day because of not enough vaccine!

HK Snob